A pair of peasant sisters who were in their prime of life have been found to have rare vision diseases, and although fate has made a big "joke" with them, they not only did not be engulfed by darkness by relying on their tenacious perseverance and hard-working spirit, but lived a glorious life.
"It's not easy for these two babies to win three gold medals, they are the pride of our whole village..." At noon on October 29, Sun Beizhan, who had just finished farm work from the orchard, came to his neighbor Sun Zengzhi to congratulate Sun Lianlian and Sun Cuilian's sisters and family members who had just participated in the 11th Paralympic Games and the 8th Special Olympics Archery Project.
A bolt from the blue
Sun Lianlian and Sun Cuilian, who live in Jinhua Community (formerly Feng Lan Village) in Potou Subdistrict, New District, are a pair of smart and studious sisters. Sister Sun Lianlian is 31 years old this year, and younger sister Sun Cuilian is 27 years old. When my sister was 18 years old, due to blurred vision and inexplicable pain in her head and eyes, she went to county, city and provincial hospitals for examination, and was finally diagnosed with primary retinitis pigmentosa in both eyes, accompanied by eye diseases such as glaucoma and cataracts. At the doctor's suggestion, her sister Sun Lianlian, who was selected to work in long jump and hurdle training at the Shaanxi Youth Sports Training Center, also underwent an eye examination, and the results of the examination were like a thunderbolt on a sunny day, giving her a blow, and she and her sister suffered from the same extremely rare eye disease with a very low cure rate, which made the sisters deeply devastated. "When we heard the news, my sister and I held our heads and cried, thinking that fate had made a huge joke for us."
The bad news that came one after another made this family that was not rich even worse. His father, Sun Zengxue, and his mother, Guo Yunling, were both authentic farmers, and Sun Zengxue suffered from polio, could not engage in heavy physical labor, and ran a small shop. In order to treat the sisters, the family was in debt.
In the following years, the sisters' eyesight declined rapidly, and the sisters also affected their studies. But Sun Lianlian, who did not want to bow to fate, let her sister not be devastated by a vision defect. In 2012, she came to Shaanxi Vocational College of Finance and Economics to study, and obtained accounting qualification certificate and primary audit certificate during the school period. Since then, he has also learned to use the screen reader to enter materials and find a job in a public welfare position at the doorstep of his home. In 2015, she harvested love and formed a happy little family.
Desperate
At the beginning of 2020, Sun Cuilian, who had been unemployed at home for 4 years, changed her life because of a chance. At that time, Shaanxi was preparing to set up a blind archery team, and the Municipal Disabled Persons' Federation recommended Sun Cuilian to let it try. With the encouragement of her family and the staff of the Disabled Persons' Federation, she was successfully selected after the test and began training at the Gou'an Disabled People's Training Base in Guanzhuang Town, Yaozhou District, Tongchuan City. "Being an archer is something I don't even dare to dream about, but since I've chosen it, I have to give it my all. When I got up at 5 o'clock in the morning to do special strength training, I was very thin, I couldn't even push up 20 kilograms when I was pushing, and now someone can push 40 kilograms with assistance, and push-ups can do 80 at a time from the beginning of 0 to now... "The improvement of performance has made people more confident, the coach has brought her a desperate road, Sun Cuilian has loved archery since then."
And the sister Sun Lianlian was able to enter the blind archery team as a result of coach Meng Mafeng's persistence. When he learned that Sun Cuilian also had a sister of similar age, he asked him to call his sister to the team to try it. Who knows, Meng Mafeng found that Sun Lianlian is a good seedling for archery, and he wanted to recruit her into the team, but because Sun Lianlian had a job, coupled with the child was still young, and practicing archery required long-term living in the base, she did not want to give up work and family. Meng Mafeng also did not want to give up the talent that may become an excellent athlete, so he sent the bow and arrow target to Sun Lianlian's home, so that she could familiarize herself with it before work and life, and then train at the base when she had time.
"With the support of the unit leaders, colleagues and family, I began to train. After work, he practiced strength and bow pulling techniques at home, and has been training at the base on weekends. After more than a year of training, the technology is also improving, and she and my sister are preparing for the Paralympic Special Olympics. Sister Sun Lianlian said.
Victory in the flag
Practice three nine in winter, three volts in summer. Blind archery as an outdoor sport, regardless of the wind and rain team members have to train in the open range. The sisters' skin was tanned, and thick calluses were grinding out at the mouth of the left thumb. A month before the competition, in order to seize this hard-won opportunity to compete, the sisters trained harder and harder, casting 800 arrows a day, twice the usual amount of training; giving up the rest time to repeatedly practice archery, high-intensity training made it difficult for their hands to tie their hair.
Effort pays off. In the just-concluded 11th National Paralympic Games and the 8th Special Olympics Archery Event Visual impairment group competition, the sisters played well, Sun Lianlian won the archery women's VI-2/3 level 30m individual and team competition, Sun Cuilian won the archery women's VI-1 level 30m team championship, and the fourth place in the individual competition.
"Through this competition, my sister and I are more confident than before, and we feel that we have a head start in our future lives. We will continue on the road of archery, and hope to go further and win glory for the country. I also won the gold medal thanks to my assistant coach, Mr. Lin Chen of the Municipal Amateur Sports School, who was my other eye, and I adjusted the movement according to his password. Sun Lianlian said.
"Both of them won the gold medal, and we are very happy as parents, but for us, the most reassuring thing is the baby's eyes, and I hope that their eyes will be cured in the future." Sun Zengxue said.
Reporters: Yuan Yuhong, Yuan Xin, Wu Yangkai